With the dog days of summer firmly upon us, finding ways to keep the hottest rooms in your house cool can be a tricky undertaking. Uneven cooling efforts lead to higher electricity costs as you run your residential air conditioning longer, with less efficiency.
This problem can be especially common in older homes that were built before modern construction techniques improved heating and cooling distribution.
Thankfully, with a little planning and effort, you can balance your home’s temperature to ensure a consistent indoor climate across every room.
Why Some Areas In Your Home Are Hotter Than Others
Before you begin to implement a remedy, it’s important to know why certain rooms are hotter than others. A major reason for higher temperatures in some areas stems from electronic devices and appliances. Computers, especially, generate excessive heat, as do refrigerators, lamps and anything with a light bulb.
Kitchens can easily become too hot if the stove or oven is constantly in use too, and this heat can disperse into adjacent rooms, raising their temperatures.
Further, blocked or clogged vents can play a big part in hindering air flow throughout your house, which puts more pressure on the system, ultimately making it less efficient.
What You Can Do To Even Out Your Indoor Temperature
How to fix a hot room in your house:
- Add a window unit
- Add a ductless air conditioner
- Getting HVAC serviced
If you don’t have central AC in your home, a window unit can go a long way toward cooling down the room. For those with central air, the simplest solution is to turn your thermostat lower to cool down the entire home. However, this might increase your AC unit’s workload and raise your electricity bills in the long run.
A smart alternative would be a ductless air conditioner. Also known as a mini-split AC, these systems are ideal for cooling down a specific room, especially one that’s much hotter than the rest of the house. The unit is half window appliance and half central air, with a condenser placed outside your home that’s connected to an evaporator placed high on the wall or ceiling. A conduit carries cold air into this especially hot room without the burden of having to cool down the entire house. These ductless cooling units are small and quiet – and, since you can isolate them to a single room, they can save you energy and money.
Having your heating, air conditioning and ventilation equipment (HVAC) serviced is also a great way to improve air circulation and ensure consistent cooling across your home. Proper maintenance boosts the equipment’s efficiency and longevity, allowing it to operate at peak efficiency. This unblocks restricted air flows that can damage the system and helps catch costly repairs before they happen. In addition, proper HVAC maintenance also helps keep your home safe from any fire hazards.
With several different ways to cool down that one room that feels like a sauna, you’ve got plenty of options to avoid the heat and keep every room in your home comfortable during the sweltering summer months.